C64 Serial Port finished!

[Tony Duell]

> 
> At 11:22 PM +0100 9/20/06, Tony Duell wrote:
> >Well done!. One comment, I would seriously recomend putting some kind of
> >strain-relief on the wires at the edge connector. What I normally do is
> >screw a couple of tapped spacers to the connector feed, then screw a bit
> >of small angle brass (L cross section) to the other side of those, and
> >then fit cable clips to that as appropriate. Otherwise you will go mad
> >continually resoldering thr wires. Don't ask how I found that out :-)
> 
> I need to do something with all that, as I mentioned in one message, 
> this is the one part of the construction I don't like.  Right now the 
> only way to unplug it is to use a pair of needle-nose pliers.
> 
> My problem is a decided lack of hardware on hand.  You don't even 

I stocked up on M2, M2.5, M3 and M4 nuts and bolts (of various lengths). 
That covers must homebrewing applications. If you prefer the UNC threads, 
they'll do too :-). I wouldn't even think of ordering less than 100 of 
each part, for the common stuff (like M3 nuts), I tend to buy 1000.

I am perhaps lucky in that I have a reasonable mechanical workshop too. 
If I need a special spacer, I make it from brass rod. A lathe makes it 
easy to get it to the right length, to drill and tap the centre hole, 
etc. I know this is not an option for everyone, though.

> want to know what I had to do to come up with the hardware to fasten 
> the 25-pin connector to the case!

The worse one is the HPIB (IEEE488) connector. The jackposts for that are 
M3.5 thread. And nobody in the UK would sell me a couple. The end result 
was that I bought a set of M3.5 taps and made them from stainless steel rod.

> 
> >My first guess was some kind of tape cartidge box (the translucent
> >plastic and the way it opens gave it away). I see others have correctly
> >said it was a TK50-like box. Well, I viewed the pictures in an local
> >internet cafe, and the box looks rectuangular (as opposed to square).
> >Either something is distorting the picture (does it look square to anyone
> >else?) or you've hit the well known perspective problem that affects
> >everyone who takes close-ups without a technical camera.
> 
> On my Mac and on my laptop (WinXP), they appear to be square.  The 

Oh, probaby a 'feature' of the LCD monitors in the internet cafe, then. 
On those it looked to have about the same aspect ratio as an audio 
compact cassette case.


> pictures were taken with a Nikon D70 and 105mm Macro lens, though I 
> did a pretty poor job on the depth of field.  Maybe I should try with 

That's one advantage of a technical camera. If you get the flim plane, 
the plane of the less (yes, that's an approximation for a real lens) and 
the plane of the subject all passing through one point [1] you get sharp 
focus throughout the image plane. I am not going to attempt to spell the 
name of the guy who named this principle, though.

[1] That point may be at infinity, that is the 3 planes can be parallel, 
which is the case for most 'normal' cameras.

> my "antique" Sony Mactiva <sp?>, it's the 10x Optical zoom one that 

Oh my carmeras are such antiques that they don't even know what a floppy 
is :-). 

> writes to a floppy.  I bought it nearly 10 years ago, largely to be 
> able to photograph computer equipment, and because it would work well 

Odd. That's why I bought an MPP Monorail...

-tony